10.24.2006

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) wants to be "unequivocally clear." "Our goal is to strengthen emissions standards and any assertion to the contrary is simply false," he said in a statement issued Friday in response to a Minnesota Natural Legacy Campaign (MNLC) press release he claims inaccurately stated his position on reducing the gases responsible for global warming.

At issue is Coleman's draft version of a "Clean Energy Portfolio Standard" that doesn't call for a national cap on carbon dioxide emissions--a measure 81% of Minnesotans prefer, according to a new MNLC survey--but instead aims to limit the rights of states and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish stricter criteria for regulating greenhouse gases.

Coleman didn't specify how MNCL mischaracterized his stance (nor has his office replied to Minnesota Monitor's request for comment), but a review of his proposal, provided by InsideEPA.com, indicates that the non-profit's release was accurate in stating that it aimed to "block states and the EPA from limiting the pollution that causes global warming" by preempting non-federal governments from determing their own emissions standards.

Coleman's draft proposal is controversial for a few reasons: the two-page summary document outlines plans to offer "clean energy credits" to producers using traditional renewable technologies as well as to those generating electricity through nuclear power and goal gasification. (It also uses a phrase popularized during George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "clean coal," a term that prompted the Sierra Club's Dan Becker to retort, "There is no such thing as 'clean coal' and there never will be.") And it prohibits states and the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing its own emissions standards, while revealing, through use of the word "allegedly," that Coleman questions CO2's role in global warming:

Preemption of State Climate Change Policies Relating to Electric Power Sector

• States, and political subdivisions of states, are preempted from adopting or attempting to enforce any standard or other requirement the purpose of which is to control the emissions of carbon dioxide from any facility that generates electricity for sale to consumers. Furthermore, the language determines that carbon dioxide is not a "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act and that any harm allegedly caused by carbon dioxide emissions is not actionable under federal or state common law.